It’s been a hard road for World Champion Hollie Vise (pictured at right at the 2004 WOGA Classic). A back injury stymied Vise's Olympic dreams, leaving her home in Texas to watch teammate Carly Patterson claim the crown in Athens. To make matters worse, when Vise returned home after Trials a stress fracture in her foot was discovered, though she refuses to use either injury as an excuse.

“[My back] was getting better,” she said, “and [my foot] wasn’t a problem until later, a couple weeks later after Trials. My foot had been hurting, but at first they said it was OK, then I went and got another x-ray and had a stress fracture.”

It wasn’t all bad news for Vise after the Games. She found herself in the spotlight when she was asked to join the Rock ‘n’ Roll Gymnastics Championships tour. The 13-city tour, which Vise did for free to retain her NCAA eligibility, proved an excellent opportunity to heal both Vise’s body and her mind.

“I had a really good time on the rock ‘n’ roll tour. It was so fun,” Vise enthused. “It was a little different and it’s always fun to do something out of the ordinary. After the letdown of the Olympics, I really needed something like that.”

“She really had the lifelong dream of being in the Olympics,” coach Evgeny Marchenko explained to Inside Gymnastics. “She was so close and when she didn’t make it the world crashed in her eyes. You couldn’t see it if you looked at her from the outside. She handled it so great, but I know her heart was crushed.”

Vise did control herself well, praising Patterson’s success and never once letting on how hard it must have been. “She took it like a good athlete,” Marchenko remembered. “She went through a very difficult time with good sportsmanship. She never complained or whined. She just said, ‘OK, time to move on.’ But, at the same time, for her to work hard again, like she used to…. It’s not easy mentally to just go back right away, especially for someone like Hollie, who doesn’t have so much [raw] power. She always had certain difficulties with her power and we were working very hard, right at the edge of her abilities. She had nothing left. No power or energy. I think that made it that much more difficult.”

Six months after her Olympic disappointment, Vise is rested and ready to prove she’s still a contender. Two weeks ago she attended her first post-selection National Team training camp. Though not yet 100 percent due to touring, injuries and a growth spurt (Vise is now “a hair over 5-4,” according to mom, LeeAnn), Vise is ready to face her future, whatever it may hold. “I’m healthy, mostly,” she said, adding, “I’m training full time now, like 6-1/2 hours a day. I don’t have any competitions coming up, really fast, but I went to camp last month. I didn’t show anything—I just went there to train—I plan on going next month, and I plan on competing at Classic and Nationals, and we’ll see from there. Everything’s going good.”

Things are falling into the place outside the gym too. Vise is back in school at Spring Creek Academy (she was home-schooled in the run up to the Games) and the high school junior is getting excited about college gymnastics. “I’m looking into UCLA, Georgia, all the big ones,” Vise said. “I’m also kind of looking into OU (Oklahoma). At first I didn’t really want to go there, but I recently changed my mind. It’s close to home, but not too close so that my parents could just, you know, pop in every day (laughs).”

“She’s doing well, working hard,” Vise’s coach confirmed. “It’s a little bit slow, [but] right now she’s trying to prepare herself for the end of the year. Of course, she’s thinking about college. She’s realizing that life is going on.

“Many, many times I told [my athletes] to follow their dreams,” Marchenko added. “Work hard. Hard work doesn’t disappear. If you don’t achieve your dream, you [still] have a million more choices.”

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